by Alex Irvine
“Following’s not really my style,” Tony said through a mouthful of dried blueberries.
“And you’re all about style, aren’t you?” Cap said.
“Steve,” Bruce said, “tell me none of this smells a little funky to you.”
Cap looked back and forth between the two scientists. Bruce could tell he was struggling with something… but he also wasn’t going to share it. He was too much of a good soldier for that.
“Just find the cube,” he said, and walked out of the lab.
“That’s the guy my dad never shut up about?” Tony said when he was gone. “Maybe they should have kept him on ice.”
“He’s not wrong about Loki.” Bruce was adding new data to a screen showing surveillance results. “He does have the jump on us.”
“What he’s got is an Acme dynamite kit,” Tony said. “It’s going to blow up in his face… and I’m going to be there when it does.”
“Yeah. I’ll read all about it.”
“Or you’ll be suiting up with the rest of us.”
Bruce shook his head with a regretful smile. “No, see, I don’t get a suit of armor. I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.”
Tony stood on the other side of the transparent screen Bruce was using. “You know,” he said, “I’ve got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart.” He tapped the miniature Arc Reactor in his chest. “This stops it. This little circle of light, it’s part of me now. Not just armor. It’s a… terrible privilege.”
“But you can control it,” Bruce said. He was willing to listen to Tony, but he didn’t feel like being lectured on what it was like to have problems. Bruce Banner knew about problems.
“Because I learned how,” Tony said.
Bruce shook his head. “It’s different.”
“Hey.” Suddenly serious, Tony swiped all the data away from the screen so they could see each other clearly. “I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you.”
“So you’re staying that the Hulk… the other guy… saved my life? That’s nice,” Bruce said. “Nice sentiment. Saved it for what?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Tony said.
Bruce swiped the data back onto the screen. “You may not enjoy that.”
Tony also got back to work. “And you just might.”
CHAPTER 15
Thor watched over Coulson’s shoulder as the agent showed him S.H.I.E.L.D.’s current files on Jane Foster. When he had learned that Loki had captured Erik Selvig, his first thought had been of Jane. Thor had destroyed the Bifrost to save the Nine Realms, but he had also cut himself off from her… or so he had thought. It was a terrible decision to make, sacrificing love for duty—yet Thor had done it. If necessary, he would do it again. He hoped it would not be necessary, though, and that was one reason why he had asked Coulson about Jane.
“As soon as Loki took Dr. Selvig, we moved Jane Foster,” Coulson explained to Thor. “They’ve got an excellent observatory in Tromsø. She was asked to consult there… very suddenly… yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She’ll be safe.”
“Thank you,” Thor said. “It’s no accident, Loki taking Erik Selvig. I dread what he plans for Erik once he’s done. Erik is a good man.”
“He talks about you a lot,” Coulson said. “You changed his life. You changed everything around here.”
Thor shook his head. At times like this, he wished no Asgardian had even come to Midgard—or, as the people here called it, Earth. “They were better as they were,” he said, meaning Selvig and Jane Foster. “We pretend on Asgard that we’re more advanced, but we come here battling like bilgesnipe.”
“What?”
“Bilgesnipe,” Thor repeated. “You know. Huge, scaly, big antlers.” He mimed the antlers with his fingers. “You don’t have those?”
“I don’t think so,” Coulson said.
“Well. They are repulsive, and they trample everything in their path.” Thor looked out into the sky, gathering his thoughts. “When I first came to Earth,” he went on, “Loki’s rage followed me here, and your people paid the price. Now, again. In my youth, I courted war.”
“War hasn’t started yet,” Fury said from nearby at his command platform. “You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?”
This possibility hadn’t occurred to Thor. “I do not know,” he said. “Loki’s mind is far afield. It’s not just power he craves. It’s vengeance, upon me. There’s no pain that would pry that need from him.”
“A lot of guys think that, until the pain starts,” Fury said.
Thor held Fury’s gaze. It was not the first time he had looked at a one-eyed man who posed him a difficult question. “What are you asking me to do?” he asked, wanting Fury to be clear and to own his words.
“I’m asking what you are prepared to do,” Fury said quietly.
“Loki is a prisoner,” Thor said. He thought Fury was testing him, seeing if he would violate his ideals to find out something they all needed to know. But Thor would not.
“Then why do I feel like he’s the only person on this boat who wants to be here?” Fury asked. Thor had no answer.
Loki paced in his cell and became conscious that someone was near. He turned and saw the woman they called the Black Widow standing on the catwalk. “There’s not many people who can sneak up on me,” he said.
“But you figured I’d come,” she said.
“After,” Loki said. “After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.” It was a typical approach. Cause misery, and then let someone appear as a friendly face. The miserable person would say anything to keep this friend. Loki had seen strong men break this way, many times.
Yet this did not appear to be what he had expected. No one had questioned him. No one had caused him any discomfort at all, save the embarrassment of being imprisoned in this cell.
“I want to know what you’ve done to Agent Barton,” she said.
“I would say I’ve expanded his mind.”
“And once you’ve won, once you’re king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?” she asked.
Loki started to think he had more control over this situation than he had known. “Is this love, Agent Romanoff?” he asked, needling her a little.
“Love is for children,” she said. “I owe him a debt.”
He came closer to the glass. “Tell me.”
“Before I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., I… well, I made a name for myself,” she said. “I have a very specific skill set. I didn’t care who I used it for. Or on. I got on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to take me out. He made a different call.”
An interesting story, Loki thought. She has much to atone for. He could hear some of her memories, from before her first encounter with Barton. Little girl, he thought, you’ve done some very bad things. And now you think you owe Clint Barton your life… but there is more to it. Loki could tell there was something in her mind that he was not quite uncovering. He pushed a little more. “And what will you do if I vow to spare him?”
“Not let you out,” she said.
He grinned. “No, but I like this. Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man.”
“Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that,” she said. “I’m Russian. Or I was.”
“And what are you now?”
She dodged the question, but again Loki had the sense he had come close to understanding something important about her. “It’s really not that complicated,” she said. “I got red in my ledger, I’d like to wipe it out.”
Red in my ledger. She spoke of life debts as if they were lines in an accountant’s records, black ink for profit and red ink for debt. Loki understood now… and he pounced.
“Can you?” he asked. “Can you wipe out that much red?” He listed for her some of the things he knew she had done. “Dreykov’s daughter… S
ão Paulo… the hospital fire? Barton told me everything.” This was a lie. Barton had told Loki certain things about Romanoff, but he was also guessing some others. He pushed ahead. Now that he understood her, he could break her. “Your ledger is dripping, it’s gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? Pathetic. You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, but they are part of you and they will never go away.”
He had done it. The Black Widow was weeping, and she turned away. “You monster.”
“Oh, no,” Loki said, loving every moment of this. “You brought the monster.”
Then she turned around and her face was completely devoid of emotion again. “So,” she said briskly. “Banner. That’s your play.”
“What?” Loki couldn’t understand how she had gathered her composure so quickly—and then he did understand. She was a superb actress! Or not even an actress, for he could see through a conscious performance. She was something else. She had been broken down and remade so many times, with so many identities, that she could put them on and take them off at will. And Loki had gotten lost in those emotional costume changes.
He had been outwitted by a mortal. Unthinkable.
She spun and started walking fast, talking into her mic as she went. “Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab. I’m on my way. Send Thor as well.”
When she had gotten to the elevator, she turned. With infuriating courtesy, she said to Loki, “Thank you for your cooperation.”
Loki watched the elevator door close. He was astonished, and furious… and also, he had to admit, a little impressed. Not many people could beat Loki at his own game. But one of them, at least this time, was Natasha Romanoff.
CHAPTER 16
Nick Fury came into the lab with a look on his face that said it wasn’t just a social call. He singled Tony out right away. “What are you doing, Mr. Stark?”
So S.H.I.E.L.D. cybersecurity had finally noticed Jarvis’s infiltration. “Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you,” Tony answered. He didn’t look upset that Fury had found him out. Instead he looked ready for a confrontation. They needed answers.
“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract,” Fury reminded them.
“We are,” Bruce said. He pointed at a screen running his search algorithm using all of the spectrometers S.H.I.E.L.D. had been able to commandeer. “The model’s locked, and we’re sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we’ll have the location within half a mile.”
“Yeah, then you get the cube back. No muss, no fuss.” Tony kept going and changed the subject. “What is Phase Two?”
Something banged on a table near the lab door, and they all turned to see that Captain America had entered and set down a prototype rifle of some kind, loud enough to purposely draw their attention.
No, Tony realized when he’d gotten a closer look at the rifle. Not a prototype. An old weapon. A Hydra weapon from World War II.
“Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons,” Cap said. “Sorry,” he added to Tony. “Computer was moving a little slow for me.” He’d been worried by what Tony and Bruce had said. He wasn’t going to tell them that, but it was true. When he’d left the lab, he’d headed for an archive level deep down inside the Helicarrier. It was a hangar space filled with steel crates, extending many levels above and below him.…
And in some of those crates, he had found a lot of weapons like the one he was now showing the rest of the team.
Fury saw that he couldn’t duck their questions anymore. He started trying to explain. “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract,” Fury said. “This does not mean that we’re making—”
“I’m sorry, Nick,” Tony interrupted. He spun a display around so it showed classified S.H.I.E.L.D. designs for Tesseract-powered weaponry. “Why were you lying?”
“I was wrong, Director,” Cap said. “The world hasn’t changed a bit.” He looked angry and disappointed. Captain America was a big believer in shooting straight and telling the truth. He didn’t like spies and he didn’t like lies, and now he saw he was knee-deep in both.
“Did you know about this?” Bruce asked Natasha as she came in with Thor.
She glanced at Fury and then said calmly, “You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor.”
“I was in Calcutta,” Bruce said. “I was pretty well removed.”
“Loki is manipulating you,” she said.
“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?”
Natasha gave him an are-you-serious? look. “You didn’t come here because I batted my eyelashes at you.”
“Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy,” Bruce said. He kept his calm, but they could all tell he wasn’t happy. None of them wanted him to get upset; they’d all seen the video of what happened the last time the Hulk went on a rampage. “I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction,” Bruce finished.
“Because of him,” Fury said, pointing at Thor.
“Me?”
“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town,” Fury said. “We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”
“My people want nothing but peace with your planet,” Thor said.
“But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And you’re not the only threat.” Fury looked at each of them in turn, letting them know he was talking about them. “The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, can’t be controlled.”
“Like you controlled the cube?” Cap shot back.
“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies,” Thor said. “It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.”
“A higher form? You forced our hand,” Fury argued. “We had to come up with something.”
“A nuclear deterrent,” Tony said. “Because that always calms everything right down.”
“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark,” Fury said coldly.
“I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep,” Cap said.
Tony held up one hand. “Hold on. How is this now about me?”
“I’m sorry,” Cap said. “Isn’t everything?” He and Tony faced each other, looking like they were ready to fight.
“I thought humans were more evolved than this,” Thor commented.
Tony turned on Thor. “Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?”
Just like that, all of them were arguing. Cap and Tony were nose to nose, while Bruce and Natasha fired remarks back and forth. Thor stood off to the side, contempt plain on his face.
None of them noticed when the gem set into Loki’s scepter started to glow.
CHAPTER 17
Tony and Cap squared off over an argument that they couldn’t even remember starting. Tony was still mad about the last thing Cap had said to him… whatever it was. He gave Cap a little brushback with his shoulder. “Back off,” Cap said.
“I’m starting to want you to make me,” Tony said.
Cap stood his ground. “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”
Tony had an answer ready for this one. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”
“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you,” Cap said. “I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”
Tony smirked. “I think I would just cut the wire.”
“Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”
“A hero? Like you? You’re a lab experiment, Rogers. Everything specia
l about you came out of a bottle.”
“Put on the suit,” Cap said. “Let’s go a few rounds.”
Thor laughed. “You people are so petty… and tiny.”
“Yeah, this is a team,” Bruce said.
Fury could see things were spiraling out of control. He started trying to get them all back on track. “Agent Romanoff,” he said, “would you escort Dr. Banner back to—”
“Where?” Bruce interrupted. “My room? You rented my room.”
Nobody had said it out loud, but they all knew the cell currently holding Loki was designed for the Hulk. Fury admitted it. “The cell was just in case—”
Again Bruce interrupted. “You needed to kill me.” The words hung there. Nobody contradicted him. “But you can’t. I know. I tried.” Bruce swallowed. It was hard for him to admit that. “So I moved on. I focused on helping people. I was good. Until you dragged me into this freak show and put everyone else in danger. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?”
“Dr. Banner,” Cap said. “Put down the scepter.”
Bruce looked down. He hadn’t even known he’d picked it up. He looked back up and saw Natasha’s hand on her sidearm. Fury was also ready to draw. The others were drawing back from him as well.
Even though he could see what was going on, the hostility in the air was still thick enough that Bruce didn’t know whether he could back everyone down… or whether he could back himself down. He could feel tension rising inside him. He could feel the monster trying to get loose.
Luckily for all of them, that was when the computer beeped. 95% MATCH glowed a red status message on the screen. “Sorry, kids, you don’t get to see my party trick after all,” Bruce said. He set the scepter down and went to see where the Tesseract was. That was the only thing that could have set off that particular alert.
But even though he was now refocused on the mission, the others still bickered. Loki had gotten into their heads, sowing discord and setting them against each other.
